Instinct
by Uozumi
Summary: A small look at how Spock's name came to be. not really a crossover, just not defined as AOS or TOS. Changed category after being inundated with reviews about the XI deleted scenes.


**Fandom** _Star Trek AOS/TOS_  
**Character(s)/Pairing(s)** Amanda, Sarek; Sarek/Amanda  
**Genre** General/Pre-series  
**Rating** PG  
**Word Count** 1182  
**Disclaimer** Star Trek c. Paramount, CBS, NBC, Roddenberry  
**Summary** A small look at how Spock's name came to be.  
**Warning(s)** none  
**Notes** It really could be either AOS or TOS. I did not make any references that would peg it as either. I did some poking about but could not find anyone who really pinned a gestational time frame for a Vulcan fetus, so I figured since a Vulcan needs more in terms of structure than a human perhaps the pregnancy would take a month or two longer. Then again, I could be wrong. I don't think canon has ever told us how many months it takes for a Vulcan baby to develop let alone a half-Vulcan, half-human baby.

_**Instinct**_

Her body was swollen and felt as though it was almost at its limit of human endurance. Amanda managed somehow to tie her shoes to a proper tightness silently and then waddle out onto the balcony. She could not lean against the railing as she used to do, so she sat on the bench and placed her hand along her protruding abdomen. She could feel the child moving and that calmed her. She welcomed the cold desert night breeze blowing over her overheated body. This child was a Vulcan summer unto himself even though fall was quickly becoming winter. It was past ten months now, but the child was not ready. A Vulcan baby took a few weeks longer to develop than a human baby. The healers gave her a special drink, which would delay her body's urge to dispel the child before he was due. They assured Amanda that the only potential side effect would be a weakened immune system, but once the child grew, that could correct itself through the right nutrition and lifestyle.

It worried her, ate at her, but if the baby were to come early, he would face much greater problems than his parentage. Her body could do this. She was healthy, strong, and determined. Her will to live never waivered. Yet her body and mind seemed fit to betray her desires. Nightmares plagued her. Her instinct tried to persuade her body into having the baby because surely the pregnancy was going on much too long now. Amanda took a deep breath of the night air and exhaled it slowly. She was not going to dwell upon those nightmares. She refused to sleep when they came, refused to expose her child to such negative and destructive thought patterns. Not all dreams were nightmares and some nights she could go without one or with only a standard nightmare like being back in high school and finding all her homework was gone. She could handle those, they were very natural and passed almost unnoticed. Yet, these new nightmares she could not even finish without waking. When they began two weeks ago, she thought she would get through them. That she would have one and return to sleep and not have any more for the night. Yet, these nightmares once they began would snowball. If she managed to wait out the night, napping in the day seemed to take care of them. Yet, Amanda knew she was not getting all the sleep she needed.

The baby responded to her dwellings by exercising his hand against her womb. Sometimes Amanda thought the child could understand her thoughts and was trying in his own way to distract her from them or assuage her apprehensions. She had also taken to calling him Spock in her head. She could not tell anyone why and had yet to share it. Perhaps it was normal, for the child was part Vulcan so to assume he would have some touch telepathy was reasonable. How she could sense these things seemed less so. She thought Sarek suspected this was happening, but he did not speak of it. She had talked him into touching her abdomen on more than one occasion. Whenever he did, the child would grow still briefly and then kick quite hard. Amanda thought it was enthusiastic. Sarek would respond to the remark with an Earth phrase he learned from his travels about taking her word for it. This always brought a quirk to her lips and amusement to her eyes. He was one of the rare Vulcans to employ such a phrase. It was very cute.

Amanda almost started when a blanket draped around her shoulders. She looked up and pulled it closer. "It was not my intention to disturb your meditation, my husband," she spoke in Vulcan, her accent still heavy and some syllables not quite correct yet.

Sarek sat beside her on the bench, close enough that she could leech from his body heat if she needed it. "More meditation is not required at this time," he answered back in Vulcan. He knew she expected him to correct her pronunciation at times like this, but he refrained. He did not have to study her at great lengths to see this last month of pregnancy was wearing on her katra and body. His meditation as of late always seemed to turn to what he would do if by the end of this entire process, it were just him and the child she carried. How would he raise the child alone? He knew that it was only logical to consider that the toll on Amanda could be deadly, but part of him did not wish to dwell on the matter more than was necessary. "You are not sleeping," he stated. His voice lowered almost minutely and Amanda knew he was concerned even if his face and eyes seemed to remain as they always were.

Amanda pulled the blanket closer around herself as the wind picked up. She could feel the dust and sand in the air cling to her already. It was an occurrence she found herself growing accustomed to even if it made her hair horribly tangled and hard to brush later. "I will sleep later," she said and reached out, placing the tips of her index and middle finger to the tips of his index and middle finger. It was a Vulcan kiss and rather effective when one could not easily lean over and properly give their husband a very human one, which Amanda really wanted to especially since they were alone and the light from nearby torches was playing off his features in just the right way.

"Has the child imparted a name to you?" Sarek asked after a moment.

"Imparted…?" Amanda struggled with the foreign word.

Sarek clarified the meaning and then approached the question as simply as the Vulcan language would allow. "Do you know the name of the child?" He tentatively reached out to touch her abdomen for emphasis. He received a sleepy kick in return from the child.

Amanda looked at him and tried not to be suspicious. It was hard to hide things from Sarek. "Should I?"

"Yes," Sarek removed his hand. "The mother will know the name of the child she carries always." He did not know if such a bond was possible between a human mother and a Vulcan fetus, but if everything else in their lives was possible, this should be as well.

Amanda had grown attached to her little name for the child, yet she did not know if it was very Vulcan. It was a type of marching band drum and a windsurfing maneuver after all. "It's Spock." She looked down at what of her swollen torso she could see. "I've been calling him Spock for five months now."

Sarek's face changed a very tiny bit and she knew he did not disapprove of the name. "It is acceptable," Sarek stated.

"Of course," Amanda returned in that tone where he was not sure if she was teasing him just a little or not.

**The End**


End file.
